PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — In March 1996, investigators said arsonists set fire to tires that were illegally dumped onto a street under I-95 in Port Richmond. The fire shut down a one-mile stretch of the roadway and cost several million dollars to fix.
Although different circumstances, another stretch of I-95, this time in Tacony, is shut down for repairs again — an all-too-familiar sight for the people who have repaired the interstate before.
Frank Paglianite, a journeyman ironworker, was 28 on the job in 1996. His team welded the base underneath the damaged portion of the highway.
“There was a lot at stake. Not many people realized that,” he said.
“It was basically a blur ’cause you were in the heat of the battle, you were under the gun. There was no time — it was just go. And that’s what made it so special, because everybody knew what we had to do.”
He’s worked different jobs and with different unions over his long career, including Ironworkers Local 401 in Philadelphia. But the 1996 tire fire was unlike anything else Paglianite has experienced in his career.
He’s proud to have had a hand in it. He even keeps a picture of his team hanging up in his garage.
“We were the first in, we were the last out. That’s just how it was,” he remembered.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro expects the temporary fix to the collapsed section of I-95 to be up and running in the next two weeks — July 1, more or less.
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